Today’s highlight

On Feb. 15, 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court.

On this date

1764: The site of present-day St. Louis was established by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau.

1898: The U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

1933: President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later.

1944: Allied bombers destroyed the monastery atop Monte Cassino in Italy.

1950: Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premieres in Boston.

1967: The rock band Chicago was founded by Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow and Robert Lamm; the group originally called itself The Big Thing, then Chicago Transit Authority.

1992: A Milwaukee jury found that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys. (The decision meant that Dahmer, who had already pleaded guilty to the murders, would receive a mandatory life sentence for each count; Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994.)